SAGE Initiative, a draft Mission Statement

November 9, 2010

The Strengthening America’s Global Engagement (SAGE) is an initiative to develop a cogent business plan for enhancing American public diplomacy and strategic communication efforts. The envisioned organization would compliment government organizations, such as the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. The new organization would have an air-gap between the government and programs that would allow greater flexibility and agility. This gap is likely to be more attractive to potential partners and programs that, for a variety of reasons, do not want to or cannot be associated with the US Government. Background information on the SAGE initiative being run out of the Woodrow Wilson Center, with support from the SmithRichardson Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, can be found here.

A draft mission statement and “broad outline of organizational framework” from the Governance Committee is below.

The new institution’s mission is to foster engagement between the U.S. society and the rest of the world with a view to promoting shared values and common interests, increasing mutual understanding and respect, and enhancing America’s standing in the world. The organization will advance these objectives preponderantly through grant making, but will also have organic capacity to itself stimulate peer to peer contacts and to build communities of interest through its ability to convene, to network, and to synthesize the best research available on relevant issues.

This organization will be a congressionally endorsed independent non profit (501-C-3) organization. It will look to congressional appropriation for some of its core funding, while program and project funding will come both from private sources and various government agencies. The governing board of the organization will be made up largely of eminent private individuals with several seats set aside for bipartisan Congressional participation.

News on SAGE will continue to be available here on MountainRunner. Disclosure: Matt Armstrong is on the SAGE budget committee.